Hi guys I will be sharing some narrative battle reports as I play games. These are shared with my local group and were intended as a humourous review of my failures to win any games!

Without further ado:400pts Tau (breacher, strike team and commander) vs necrons (2x warriors and Lord)

Shas El Mipp’ie leapt from the troop bay of the orca, his dutiful marker drone chirping and dropping out the sky behind him. As he dropped he surveyed the industrial zone below him, the Gue’la way of building was ugly with blocky structures and smog belching from every chimney, making visibility poor. It was a good thing that the Tau’va had come to remove the Gue’la taint from this world. Mipp’ie had been redirected to this sector due to reports that work crews had not reported back in and hundreds of autonomous drones had gone missing, fearing insurgency activities from some remnants of the Gue’la forces high command had dispatched a local force of firewarriors to investigate along with Mipp’ie to provide guidance and support as necessary.

Mipp’ie flared his jump pack to arrest his descent before touching down with consummate skill, he quickly summoned the two Shas’ui from the strike team and breacher team in the area of operations.

“What information do we have Shas?”“No information at this time honoured Shas’el” replied the breacher team shas’ui “my team may not be a path finder unit but we have our TY7 and are ready to act as a scout element”Mipp’ie looked at the shas, breacher team leaders were always so eager to be at the forefront of conflict and face their foes face to face it made him wonder whether the old ways of war would ever return “Thank you shas’ui…” “Burok” replied the shas “Thank you shas’ui Burok, mount up and sweep ahead of the force, if there are Gue’la out there I want them found, when you”

“Shas’el!” Mipp’ie frowned at the lack of respect and protocol and looked over at the strike team shas “What? What is that?” Mipp’ie looked up to see an ominous green glow growing in the distant haze.

“Cancel my last instruction, Burok take your team left, sweep through the ruins and outflank whatever that is” flicking his suits head in the direction of the glow, Burok saluted and jogged back to his transport “Shas’ui” Mipp’ie said turning to the strike team leader, who's name he hadn’t bothered to ask “I have an Orca orbiting, it has DS8 support turrets and I have given deployment authorisation to you, take your team and secure our right, we shall hold the line”

The Shas’ui nodded and started giving clipped orders to his team.

Mipp’ie called up the status of his plasma rifle, shield generator and marker drone companion, all were green and operating at peak efficiency, as always, and prepared to wait and confront whatever foulness the Gue’la had concocted. As he formed this thought the first neon green beams came slashing out of the haze, lashing around the strike team, one of their members was hit and his armour and flesh was literally flayed from his body in one horrific second, as this happened his drone gave a chirp that it had targets and he instantly gave the order to paint the target.

They were roughly humanoid but were approaching with a stiff jerky gait, he aimed his plasma rifle at the first and waited for it to present a clear target. When it did he was so shocked he missed his first instinctive shot, the enemy were metallic skeletons! The second shot was more composed and hit his target in its face, dropping the construct to the ground where it then disappeared with a flash. A support turret dropped from the circling orca, as the strike team opened fire with practised efficiency, felling a number of the constructs, Mipp’ie let out a grim smile that promptly vanished as the machines repaired the damage and stood straight back up.

On the left Burok felt the Devlifish jink as it wove between the neon green beams, and heard the burst cannon and gun drones open fire, chattering out hundreds of rounds, most of which splashed harmlessly off the metallic hides of their targets, the ones that did fall got back up again, all signs of damage gone. His team were watching the same camera feed as he was with grim and silent resolve, they knew what was coming

“Prepare for disembark and close assault” The Devilfish slewed to a halt and the side hatch popped open, with fire sleeting all round them Burok and his team leapt out, their Pulse blasters pumping, each shot putting an enemy down for good.

Burok and his team continued to push forward into the enemy’s metallic teeth pumping out round after round. With a deafening crash their transport was brought down, the pilots unable to pull out and regain altitude following the rapid deployment. With a growl Burok pushed forward closing the gap and punishing the enemy until each of the metallic monstrosities had been put down.

The strike team continued to pump round after round into their target, to little or no effect, more and more members dropping with horrifying screams. Mipp’ie boosted forward to close the range and increase his rate of fire, but with a shocking burst of speed the enemy swerved and charged at him before he could counter, a last desperate volley from the strike team and his weapons proved ineffective and the enemy closed. His dutiful marker drone buzzed forward to intercept the foe but with an unexpected swiftness they all evaded and then clubbed the machine down.

Mipp’ie was left facing a monstrous enemy, looking at him with benign intelligence. Mipp’ie jetted forward to land a punishing kick with his suit, however the impact was like kicking rock. The thing, let out a rattling laugh “DIE” it whispered and swung its staff, scything through Mipp’ie’s suit from shoulder to hip, just avoiding the firecaste leader in his cocoon within the suit.

The Suit’s failsafe system kicked in and the remains of the cocoon were explosively ejected and retro rockets boosted it out of the battlespace to the waiting Orca with the unconscious Shas’el inside.

The strike team continued to back away firing round after round as the abominations closed in for the final kill. Burok heard the screams over the squad net and was double timing his unit to get back into the fight as the enemies came round the corner of the building ahead, his squad stopped and started firing. The large creature with the staff came round the corner, seemed to grin and started running towards Burok’s team. Even their weapons, so brutally effective against the foot soldiers, had no discernible effect on this monster, as he closed the distance. The staff started to swing and tau started dying again.

The Guardian Drone attached to the late Burok’s breacher team registered the death of the Shas’ui and it’s emergency protocols kicked in, boosting up and away from the enemy, jinking through the air to avoid the flickers of fire it headed towards the nearest command and control hub – the Tau’va need to know what happened here, and need to be prepared for next time.

Well here is another one....this time against sisters of battle. I got done even worse this time round! Final scores were something in the region 30 taco points to 5 HAHA

Shas’el Mipp’ie was bored. He had been bored since he had recovered from his encounter with those metal skeletons and he had been bored this last 7 rotaa since his recovery. He had been tasked with escorting and protecting some Water Caste diplomats in their efforts to negotiate and talk down the Gue’la remnants on this planet. So far they had successfully negotiated with 4 groups and through a combination of money, praise and promises had gotten them to join the Greater Good. They had come to negotiate with a group of female Gue’la priests, taking with them some sort of local delicacy called a “Pass’tee”, it stunk and looked greasy.

Shas’Ui Borak was also bored and irritated. It had been just over a 7 rotaa since he had watched his Kins man die at the hand of the laughing metal skeleton and all he wanted to do was kill something, preferably them! As a result the troop compartment of the Devilfish was very quiet, the Shas well able to read their team leader’s mood.

Mipp’ie had his suit in dormant mode – it allowed power conservation and enabled him to appear in dominatable and immovable to on lookers. Nothing unnerved the Gue’la more than something they knew to be alive not moving for hours on end. Still….it didn’t change the fact that he was bored….which meant it came as a great surprise when two things happened almost simultaneously

First there was a staccato burst of weapons fire from the building that the negotiators were in and second one of the ugly Gue’la tanks rumbled round the corner swivelled it’s turret towards him and left rip a blinding beam of energy.

With the suit in dormant mode Mipp’ie had no motive functions, no weapons and barely enough power to run his systems – he hurriedly blink clicked the icon for his shield generator, watching as the protective bubble enveloped him. The twin beams of energy smashed into the shield of Mipp’ie, with a blinding flash and a thunder clap of kinetic energy the shield failed, hurling Mipp’ie’s suit backwards due to having no motive drive or gyros running.

Mipp’ie was thrown through the wall of a building, the brick work collapsing on top of him. His suits joints were melted and fused due to the extreme heat of the energy weapon. The combination of factors and the abuse his suit suffered meant that his FoF tracker was shut down, as a result his two attendant marker drones registered his death, and initiated their emergency protocol and immediately left the battlespace to return to High Command.

The strike team who were in the central buildings overlooking the negotiations location saw their leader fall and instantly opened fire on the figures flitting around in the shadows and windows, the DS8 support turret started pumping out missiles towards the distant targets, prioritising the enemy transport vehicles. This was aided by a pathfinder team who were skulking in a ruined building marking targets and guiding their colleague’s fire in.

The Gue’la recognised this threat and heavy calibre rounds were pummelling the ruins that the pathfinders had set up in, the dutiful warriors keeping their targets marked. In the flurry of activity the Strike team Shas’ui missed the vehicle that had taken out their commander as it moved up on their flank. Too late he saw the danger and started repositioning his troops, however the female Gue’la disembarked and levelled their flamer weapons.

“OOOUUUTTTT!” Screamed the strike team Shas’ui as he started pushing his warriors back – but it was too late. 5 streams of burning promethium sheeted in through the windows purging all life from the building as the voracious flames consumed all flammable materials, including the tau warriors.

Burok could see the icons representing his allies blinking out and felt his simmering anger continue to grow, he had directed his Devilfish to drop him in position to clear out the negotiation building, his intent to retrieve the diplomats, alive or dead.

The Devilfish gave a stomach churning lurch and the back hatch slammed open, Burok and his breachers leaping out firing. He heard a few female screams as the lead elements sprinted up to the doors. They planted a charge as the Devilfish lifted away, breached the doors and stormed through the wreckage, blasters pumping.

Instead of disarray they were met with a hail of bolts, eviscerating his warriors as they rounded the door frame, fully three quarters of his warriors dropping. Snarling Burok lead the remaining two warriors in through the ruined doors felling 4 of the warrior women who were guarding a stair way directly inside, with the stairs to the front cleared he charged up them expecting more rooms.

As he cleared the top stair he instinctually ducked, just avoiding the power armoured first that had intended to take his head off. As he regained his feet their guardian drone zipped up the stairs and smashed into the unprotected face of the woman, dropping her with a sickening crunch. A swirling melee erupted at the top of the stair between Burok’s breachers and the Gue’la women.

As the Devilfish pulled away jinking to evade the incoming fire, the weapons op picked up a distress signal matching Shas’el Mipp’ie’s details, he passed the information to the pilot and focused on laying down a curtain of fire from the burst cannon. The pilot received the co-ordinates and sent the Devilfish into a looping arc attempting to avoid the Gue’la warriors, the retrieval of the Shas’el being a priority. Taking a number of glancing hits the Devilfish started its run to pick up the Shas’el, its pilot expertly weaving through the enemy fire and making full use of the available cover to mask it.

Shas’el Mipp’ie’s battlesuit was completely wrecked. It’s system had held just enough power to activate the shield generator and that has saved his life and stopped him from being vaporised. His suit however was a wreck, all the systems had been shorted out, and all the joints were fused together. He cranked the emergency exit lever which with a few kicks popped the front hatch. Clambering out, he activated his emergency beacon and awaited help to arrive.

Burok’s team were dead, he hadn’t seen them die, but the noise of fighting had died down and stopped, it was just him and the Gue’la leader left. He risked a glance to the right to see the Guardian drone hovering above the stairs covered in a large amount of Gue’la blood. The drone chirped and zipped down the stairs in response to a banshee like shriek from below.

The distraction was all it took – Burok felt a thud and felt the air leave his lungs, he slowly looked back and down to see a dagger embedded in his stomach, with a sigh he slumped to his knees and onto the floor.

The Devilfish touched down and Mipp’ie sprinted from the ruined building and into the hatch, the craft pulled away. The Tau Empire would not accept this betrayal of diplomacy, he would return and exact revenge.

Mippie I love this idea! I want to copy it if you would allow me the honour I wanted to start writing stories about my Tau to give them more life than just a paint job and some poses, and I think this way will be the best way to string a narrative and some history into my figures

The days of goodly English is wentZiss old dog still has a few tricks!